92 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 



LETTER XIV. 



THE FIRE ISLANDS. 



It was Sabbath morning, when I arose and threw 

 open the shutters. The mist-covered ocean lay like a 

 sleeping giant before me, stretching his arms up into 

 the land, and the drizzling rain came down without a 

 sound. Out by the barn, a negro was feeding a flock of 

 black turkeys, while three or four goats had mounted 

 an old wagon, trying, apparently, to imagine it was 

 a rock. The poor creatures, having nothing else to 

 climb, and unable to restrain their propensities, mount 

 the fences, wagons, or anything that looks like an 

 eminence. 



After breakfast, we packed ourselves into a close- 

 covered Rockaway, and started for the church, some 

 five miles off. It was built at the private expense of 

 the lady I was with, and was the only place of pub- 

 lic worship for miles around. The Methodists had 

 preaching, now and then, in a school-house in the 

 woods, which we passed on our way to church. The 

 church to which we were bound is a little box of a 

 thing, capable of holding perhaps two hundred peo- 

 ple. The storm had kept many at home, and the con- 

 gregation on this day amounted to perhaps sixty or 



